Recent advances in communication technology have made possible the delivery of multimedia data streams to multiple users in a communication network. Many current delivery systems store multimedia content, such as recorded videos, and may generate other types of content, such as live data streams of sporting events, at centralized and/or distributed locations. Typically, when a user wishes to view content, a request for content is transmitted from the user to the centralized location, and/or to one or more distributed locations, and a search is performed at the centralized and/or distributed locations to identify content matching the user's request. When content matching the user's request is identified, the content is offered to the user. The content may be provided to the user in the form of a unicast transmission.
Current systems are often inefficient and costly. Performing searches of available content in response to user's requests can be time-consuming. In addition, establishing a unicast channel for each user who requests content can result in an inefficient use of resources.